This March break, 11 students and two faculty members are traveling to Berlin, Prague, and Krakow to explore the idea of monuments and memorials and their role in public memory, and learn more about the Holocaust and how Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland responded in the late 20th century and early 21st century to the study of Holocaust memory, public art, and their fusion in contemporary life. Please enjoy the blog post below from Olivia ’28 where she shares about the group’s day of exploration in Krakow, uncovering its rich legends, tragic history, and vibrant culture, from St. Mary’s Church and the Wawel Dragon to the Galicia Jewish Museum’s powerful reminders of the past.
Today we explored the city of Krakow. The temperature was negative three degrees Celsius when we took our first steps on its cobbled streets. As the sun traveled to the middle of the sky, our steps approached ten thousand and the temperature warmed to about two degrees Celsius. Now it’s pitch black, and I sit in bed, thinking about some of the Polish stories that Gregory, today’s tour guide, told us.
Once upon a time, there were two twins, specifically brothers. There was also a duke. He decided to construct two towers to attach to St. Mary’s, a gothic church close to the main market square. Built in the fourteenth century, it carried many stories. The first was of its two, brick towers. These would serve as the church’s bell tower and watchtower. The two brothers soon set about their task. However, as the church’s completion approached, one of the brothers became aware that his tower was much shorter. So, in an act of jealousy, he conjured a knife and stabbed his twin in his heart. Tragically, the brother perished, while the surviving brother continued to construct his tower. While he now may have had the tallest tower, he didn’t have his twin. This story had no happily ever after.
In addition, Poland was always being invaded, and so, the watchtowers were all of great importance. The next legend also involves St. Mary’s, coincidentally. In a country of castles and dragons, a guard was stationed at the watchtower of the very church depicted in the previous story. However, as he was observing the landscape, he suddenly realized that Krakow was being attacked. To warn the Polish people of the threat, he played his trumpet at the top of the watchtower. But before he could complete the song, a bowman’s arrow tore through his throat. Tragically, the guard died, but he was able to protect all of Krakow with his music.
Today, every sixty minutes, a man will play the trumpet from a window at the top of the tower, then abruptly stop playing to symbolize the guard’s sudden death all those years ago. He will wave to the people beneath him, who will wave back. He will not reappear for the next sixty minutes.
The last tale is of a fire breathing creature with wings, teeth, and a hungry belly, that dwelled beneath Wawel hill. It was the Wawel Dragon, the beast that wreaked havoc and terrorized the people of Krakow. To satisfy its hunger, it devoured virgin girls. Many knights attempted to conquer the dragon, but all died. Suddenly, a shoemaker arrived. He was a smart man and stuffed a ram’s body with Sulphur and pitch, and then put it in the dragon’s den. The dragon’s throat burned after eating it, so it drank water from the Vistula River to quench its thirst. But the river could not extinguish the burning Sulphur within the dragon, and the ensuing gases from the internal fire led the creature’s explosion. All of Krakow celebrated the dragon’s demise, and the shoemaker was wedded to the king’s daughter as a reward. To commemorate the moment, a sculpture of the dragon was built next to the river. Every five minutes a stream of fire will erupt from its mouth to remind the people of how it inspired terror. Now, if a child is mischievous or misbehaving, it is brought to the dragon and told that if they don’t behave, they will be gobbled up by the fire-breathing monster for lunch.
While these are just legends, there is some truth to them. There is so much tragedy, warfare, and terror in Polish history and their stories, but there is also bravery, sacrifice, and hope. Before the Holocaust, seventy thousand Jews thrived in the city of Krakow. Now, eighty years after World War Two, only two hundred Jews occupy Krakow. Sixty thousand Jews from the city were murdered during the Holocaust. Life was unfairly ripped from their bodies, and this group of people were unjustly torn from society. But pieces of these stories are visible in the main market square, a central part of the city, which displays magnificent architecture and culture.
After eating lunch at a traditional Polish restaurant, we were able to explore on our own for a few hours. I headed to the market with Aelahni and Sophie. There, we observed amber jewelry, painted chess sets, music boxes, and wooden girls with painted flower crowns that resembled the virgin girls from the legend of the Wawel Dragon. All of these trinkets symbolized the life of Polish people and their culture.
Here is what resonated with me the most and will be the last thing I share with you. To conclude our day, we visited the Galicia Jewish Museum. There, a variety of photographs were showcased. Two of them caught my eye. One was a photo of a graffitied person throwing away a swastika in a trash can. This image was taken on the wall of a cemetery. The other photo depicted the words “Nazi OK” graffitied on a Jewish cemetery. Each photo contrasted to each other. While touring the streets of Krakow, I noticed there was plenty of graffiti decorating the walls of buildings, but it was always drawings of insignificant cartoons and bubble letters. I never saw such “casual” art about the Holocaust before those two photographs in the Museum. It reminded me that people actively support the Nazis to this very day, just as people support Jewish people. I hope that we continue to remember the tragedies of our past (these photos serve to help us remember) so that we can learn from our mistakes and make sure they don’t happen again.